


Prayers — another take

by mcepl



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Bible, Christianity, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-07 00:47:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 10,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26328121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcepl/pseuds/mcepl
Summary: Sometimes, there is nothing to do but pray. Hermione is lost and confused after wiping the memory of her parents. Centred around contemplation over Psalm 91.
Kudos: 2





	1. In the Shelter of the Most High

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Prayers](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/679528) by Master Spy advenger. 



She first even didn’t think of coming to the church. She was leaving her home as fast as possible so that her presence wouldn’t interfere with the memory charms, but she was still very uneasy, and she then thought she might need to have a word with God to order herself.

Now, she was standing in the middle nave of the church looking at the altar, and she didn’t know what to say. Then, so that at least she didn’t look so silly, she sat down to a pew. Her thoughts, rather nasty and confused, were swirling in her head, but they didn’t seem likely to condense into anything workable. After a couple of minutes of this confusion, she pulled out of her bag a small pink book _Prayers for Young Girls_ and leafed through its pages until she hit the section called “Biblical prayers for times when we feel lost”. There were a couple of Psalms, and she stopped at Psalm 91. [1]

> You who live in the shelter of the Most High,
> 
> who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,
> 
> will say to the Lord, ‘My refuge and my fortress;
> 
> my God, in whom I trust.’
> 
> For he will deliver you from the snare of the fowler
> 
> and from the deadly pestilence;
> 
> he will cover you with his pinions,
> 
> and under his wings you will find refuge;
> 
> his faithfulness is a shield and buckler.
> 
> You will not fear the terror of the night,
> 
> or the arrow that flies by day,
> 
> or the pestilence that stalks in darkness,
> 
> or the destruction that wastes at noonday.
> 
> A thousand may fall at your side,
> 
> ten thousand at your right hand,
> 
> but it will not come near you.
> 
> You will only look with your eyes
> 
> and see the punishment of the wicked.

Wow! She immediately felt sick to her stomach. Leaving her parents behind made her suddenly completely alone, and even the hope of meeting with Ron and Harry couldn’t improve how much weight of the world she felt resting on her shoulders. How much she longed for having a shelter! She didn’t start crying, but it was a long and difficult battle for her.

And that text felt awfully relevant to her situation at the moment even for other reasons. How much she would like not to fear! However, when she started to think about fear, she suddenly saw how she was just drowning in it. How most of her reactions were heavily set by fear for her friends, fear for her parents, fear for Weasleys, fear for classmates and other Gryffindors, and yes, fear for herself. There was fear everywhere. How is it possible to live in such a situation without fear? She remembered she had heard somewhere that “fear is a bad mentor”. If her thinking was so much dominated by fear, how really good were her decisions? And of course, she started to question her decision to send her parents to Australia.

She sat there in a pew, the only person in the whole church, lost in her thoughts. That’s how Father Williams found her.

“Hello, Hermione, I haven’t known you were back from your boarding school. When did you arrive?”

“Good morning, Father. I have been here for a couple of weeks, but I was so busy with some personal projects, that I haven’t found time to visit. I am sorry about that.”

“Don’t worry about it. I am just glad to see you. How are you?”

She was obviously in quite a state, and she replied hurriedly.

“That is exactly the problem. I don’t know. Or rather, I am afraid I very much doubt one decision I’ve made and I may have terribly hurt somebody. And I am so afraid and so alone in all this.”

She was alone and confused, and she finally started to cry a little. The priest approached her and gently took her to his arms. She fast controlled herself and got out of his embrace. He looked at her with a sad look.

“What’s wrong, Hermione? Would talking about it help to make order in your thoughts?”

“Yes, it probably would, but the problem is that I cannot tell you anything, because I am not supposed to.”

“What do you mean, that you are not supposed to? Did anybody threaten you?”

“No, not like that. But, … how to say it … it is something like signing the Official Secrets Act and now I cannot talk about it.”

“Ah, I see. If it helps, I was a military chaplain for years and I think I have some level of security clearance. And I am a patriot, I would never betray the secrets of this country to anybody. Besides, I could not even tell anybody. Did you forget about the Seal of Confessional? Of course, whatever you tell me will never leave my lips. I couldn’t say anything.”

She was sitting there lost in her thoughts. Then she tried.

“Besides, it would be dangerous not only for me but even for you. If anybody found out, they would hurt you.”

“Hurt me? Did you get involved in some criminal organization, Hermione?”

“No, no, just contrary. But still, I wouldn’t like to get you involved.”

“Did I mention I was a military chaplain? I am very much ready to help you, even if it means a personal danger for me.”

She was sitting there lost in her thoughts. It took her another minute before she finally decided.

“OK, I will tell you, but not here. Could we go to your office?”

They went to the church office and the girl pulled out a thin piece of wood and started to wave with it around herself.

“What was that?”

She smiled and replied.

“That’s the point. Magic is real, and I am a witch.”

“What? Hermione, are you OK?”

“Oh, lovely, now you think I am crazy as well. No, magic is real. Let me show you.”

She waved with her stick again and the small vase flew from the cabinet next to the office desk standing in the centre of the room and then against any normal laws of nature it was just flying in front of the priest’s face. Father Williams started to wave hands around the vase and he was completely lost in what’s going on.

“Did you drug me or something?”

“No, no drugs, it is just a simple levitation charm. And see, this is the thing I only learnt recently. Keeping one charm in effect while firing another one to the same object.”

She waved with the stick again, and the vase without moving a centimetre changed into a rabbit. The rabbit looked a bit confused when it found itself flying in the middle of the room and a meter-and-half above the ground, but it didn’t make any sound.

The priest with fear in his eyes stuck out his hand and petted the animal flying in front of him.

“What’s that?”

“Don’t you see? It is a rabbit. Actually, it just looks like a rabbit, it is just a magical construct looking like one, I have probably not managed to make proper internal organs and it could probably not survive for long. Which doesn’t matter that much, because it will turn back in half-an-hour anyway.”

The priest sat down on the chair behind the table with a small thud.

“Rabbit. There is a rabbit flying in the middle of my office.”

Another swish with the stick and the rabbit flew back to the bookcase while changing into the vase. The girl was obviously satisfied with her effort.

“That’s what I wanted. Two charms at once!”

Then she saw a shocked look on the priest’s face, another wave of a wand, and there was a glass with water standing in front of him.

“What’s that?”

“A glass of water. I thought it could help you.”

“I don’t understand! What’s going on?”

The girl pulled a chair from the corner of the office and sat down just in front of the desk.

“Exactly, what I said. The magic is real. There are thousands of real wizards and witches living on the British Isles. Muggles, err, non-magical people, don’t know about us, because there are very strict rules forbidding any knowledge to be leaked from the magical world.”

Now it was the priest’s moment to sit down and think. He drank up the whole glass of water, and in the end, he shook his head and spoke up.

“First things first. This is not some occult, compact with the devil, or anything of that kind? You haven’t sacrificed a chicken?”

The girl laughed.

“No, nothing like that. Actually, when I experienced the real thing, I can assure you that I am absolutely against any occult because it is just a swindle. I don’t think anybody really understands how magic really works, probably something weird about genetics, but magical people just must be born so. There is no way a Muggle can make himself into a wizard or a witch. If I understand it correctly, the Biblical prohibition against an occult is exactly about this trying to do something or pretending to do something which you were not born with.

And I certainly consider myself to be a Christian, and I believe I consider Jesus Christ to be my sole Lord and Saviour. I came here to the church to pray a Psalm.”

That made the priest think even more.

“Actually, this all doesn’t matter that much, however it looks crazy. I guess you ask me about problems of your heart, not of your magic, right? And witches have the same soul like us, don’t they? What do you need help with? Can I help you even when I don’t know anything about this magic?”

“With all due respect, Father, I don’t think you can help me with my Charms much. However, I am in awe … I haven’t expected you to recover from finding out about magic so fast. Thank you very much.”

“Your charms?”

“Sorry, Charms is a technical name for one branch of magic, not my charming personality. So, how can you help me? Well, I have to explain one more thing. The wizarding world is not only real but at least in Britain, it is right now in the middle of something quite resembling a civil war.”

“Ouch.”

“Quite. There is that very evil man, who decided to conquer the wizarding world by persecuting his opponents and by spreading the vile racist ideology of the superiority of wizards against non-wizards and against wizards and witches who are born to non-wizards. The last category includes me, my parents are Muggles. The war is currently going pretty badly for the government and for those opposing this evil wizard.

Yes, I am just seventeen, but that is considered an adult in the wizarding world, and my friend has a plan which could significantly hurt the evil wizard and I would like to help him.”

The priest was now looking really confused.

“Hold on. You are telling me that there is a war going around me, and I haven’t noticed anything?”

“Yes. And, it is surprising, that you haven’t noticed anything. At least the destruction of the Brockdale Bridge should be easy to spot.”

“It was destroyed by wizards? I thought that the commission concluded there was an engineering mistake, which caused the fall of the bridge.”

“Yes, the Ministry of Magic managed to persuade the Muggle public about this cover story. Unfortunately, it is not true, the same goes for some attacks which were officially attributed to the IRA. There is war and our side is not doing very well since the leader of good guys, Professor Albus Dumbledore, the headmaster of the only wizarding school in Britain, was killed.”

“That sounds bad. OK, so there is a war, but how does it concern you. With all due respect, you don’t look like a soldier to me.”

“Well, that’s complicated. First of all, one difference from the non-magical world, there is no such thing as a weaker sex when you use a wand for the combat, so some of the most famous fighters in the wizarding history were women. How a person looks to you can be quite misleading. Second, I don’t think open fighting would be my first priority, you know me, I am more towards study and research, so I would like to help my friend more with this. However, do not make a mistake, I can fight reasonably well too, I have survived two rather vicious battles already, one this and one last year.”

The priest looked shocked but stayed calm. The girl continued.

“Now, however, what we need to do now is an undercover operation, to stay under the radar, so to speak, for a long time. It can be the only thing which can help finish the war, but it is also extremely dangerous and probably too close to a suicide mission for my comfort.”

This suddenly made much more sense.

“So, you don’t know how to say this to your parents and you are afraid of their reaction.”

The girl looked even more embarrassed.

“No, it is worse.”

The priest asked, slightly frowning.

“I haven’t been honest with my parents about the state of the magical world for years. I was in deadly dangerous situations before, but I was afraid that if I had told them, they would have pulled me out of the school and made me transfer to a school somewhere in another country, and I would lose the only friends I have ever had. So, I have downplayed the danger and because they are non-magical, they thought that whatever they were told by others, by letters from the school, were just accidents. And now, when they are in real danger, I don’t know how to tell them.”

She stopped, embarrassed and suddenly looked very much like a small girl caught in a naughty business. William decided this was probably the right time for a little nudge.

“Of course, you care about them. So what did you do?”

The girl was very insecure and it took her plenty of time before she collected her courage to speak, but then she started.

“There is a spell that can make a person forget something and even modify their memory so that they can remember something, which actually never happened. Yes, using it is strictly regulated and it is especially never allowed to be used by unauthorized persons on Muggles, so I broke the law twice in one moment.

However, I really didn’t know what else to do, so I have made them forget that I have ever existed, their own names and identity, and made them eager to sell their practice, and move to Australia.”

Her look was full of fear of the incoming condemnation from the priest. He was obviously shocked, he was silent and thinking for a long time. It took him almost ten minutes or more before he said a word.

“I don’t think I will surprise you when I say that I consider what you did to your parents wrong, and that I don’t like the idea of you lying to them for the last couple of years.”

She nodded silently, but then she added her question.

“Yes, I understand that and yes I don’t think what I did was the most Christian idea, but what could I have done?”

“For the beginning, you are what, seventeen? Then you are not an adult, so your parents are still responsible for you, aren’t they? You just cannot legally do anything without the consent of your parents.”

“It is not that simple, because wizards and witches are getting emancipated when they are seventeen, not eighteen, so I am a legal adult in the magical world.”

“Do you honestly believe yourself that it is a valid reason?”

“You are right, and no, I don’t, but it is difficult to explain to my magical friends.”

“I understand, but that is the point, isn’t it? Is it more important to do what’s right, or to make it easy for yourself, lie to your parents, make yourself liked by your friends?”

“Easy? Did I say it is more or less a suicide mission?”

“And yet, you are willing to die, but you are not willing to be honest with your parents, although as an adult in the wizarding world you can easily avoid them if they try to stop you from doing what you planned to do. Why?”

There was another long moment of silence. The girl was very uneasy, but in the end, she agreed.

“You are right. There is just one reason to do it: it was easier. However, I still don’t understand what’s the solution: if I talked with my parents, and they forbade me to do anything and perhaps move out of the country, and then all my friends are killed by Death Eaters, what’s right about it?”

She needed to cool down and think a bit more before she could arrive at some sane conclusion.

“What were you reading when I found you in the church?”

“From my _Prayers for Young Girls_ book. I found that there are some actual Biblical poems in there, so I was reading Psalm 91.”

“How did it go?”

She explained to him how she was troubled over the idea of peace in the middle of a battle or an epidemic outbreak.

“Is this even possible? How can anybody be calm when people die next to them?”

That was a good question. And obviously one very relevant to her situation. He understood that she is very far from being calm, and that the silly decision to wipe her parents’ memories was a rash reaction to her panic. He knew that she does best when using their brain for analytical work. Let’s try a bit of that.

“Have you finished that psalm?”

She looked at him with a bit of hope. Does she believe that he will allow switching the subject to avoid her stupid behaviour? She consented to the switch of the subject immediately.

“No, I have read just those first paragraphs which made me so confused.”

“I see, so let us continue.”

> Because you have made the Lord your refuge,
> 
> the Most High your dwelling-place,
> 
> no evil shall befall you,
> 
> no scourge come near your tent.
> 
> For he will command his angels concerning you
> 
> to guard you in all your ways.
> 
> On their hands they will bear you up,
> 
> so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.
> 
> You will tread on the lion and the adder,
> 
> the young lion and the serpent you will trample under foot.

Her voice was rather low, but she read the text clearly and without hesitation.

“What do you think this means?”

She was looking quite lost and looked at those few lines with a wrinkled forehead. It took her plenty of time to think it through.

“I guess, the key is to make the Lord your refuge. I have apparently never thought about this psalm seriously, because suddenly I really cannot imagine, what it means exactly, and how to apply it to my situation.”

His first impulse was to preach about finding the personal relationship with Jesus, but he didn’t know how well she would accept it. She heard those talks many times, and now she was admitting it doesn’t make much sense to her. How to get there without talking Christianese?

“Hermione, you always liked William Wilberforce [2], didn’t you?”

“Yes, of course. And it is funny how much I think about him these days, how he liberated slaves in the whole British Empire, house-elves …. Right, keep focused, girl! Yes, of course, he is my hero.”

“What do you think was for him the moment when he needed to make the Lord his refuge the most?”

She was thinking for some time.

“I wanted to say at first all times when his bills were defeated in the Parliament. However, I am not sure it was the worst moment of his campaign. I would feel worse in those almost fifteen years when he could not have done anything for his cause, because of the Napoleonic War with France.”

“I think so. It is obvious that Wilberforce himself didn’t do very well with this time of waiting and doing nothing. This was the time when somebody [3] said, that ‘It seemed that every spring the daffodils came out, every summer the cherries ripened and every autumn William Wilberforce would present his bill to the House.’ He was so concerned with his inability to move on the slavery issue, that he even suggested seeking a peaceful resolution with France, which made him lose temporarily his long-time friendship with the William Pitt, jr. who was then already the Prime Minister. They reconciled only over Pitt’s death bed.”

The girl looked at him with unease.

“I am afraid, I don’t understand, what is the point you want to make about my situation.”

He knew that he was now in the situation when he had to explain his thoughts, or he would lose her attention.

“What I wanted to say is, that everybody who fights for something important comes to the situation when he has to give up on his dream. I know it sounds against logic, but it really is so. When you do things your way, you can achieve something, certainly. But the true miracle of changing the world usually happens when the dream dies and it is resurrected again by God. You know we Christians are all about the resurrection.

I am a Christian pastor, so I can give you this the piece of advice: if you want to fight as a Christian, then you have to trust Jesus, that he can fight for you. And if you want him to fight for you, then it must be done according to his rules, you cannot coerce Him to fight on your own terms.”

The girl was looking confused.

“You mean, I should give up and let my friends fight alone? It doesn’t feel like a good idea to me.”

The pastor shook his head.

“If it doesn’t feel right, then it quite likely isn’t. No, what I mean is that you have to stop planning as if God didn’t matter, you have to expect and rely on his help, and to accept that it is more important to do what’s right, not what’s easy, you mentioned the distinction yourself. What it means exactly in each situation is up to you and your conscience. However, if I may suggest one idea, I don’t think lying to your parents is exactly following God’s narrow path of doing things.”

The girl nodded.

“But … I mean, you are right, lying doesn’t look like God’s way, true. But … what if they won’t accept me fighting and possibly risking my life? I cannot leave my friends just because my parents don’t like it! For Merlin’s sake, I am supposed to be an adult.”

He smiled and nodded.

“Welcome to the world of adulthood, Hermione. Sometimes you just have to make decisions, which those you love would disagree with. And if they disagree, well, that’s exactly the point I was talking about before. You will have to just decide on doing what your conscience tells you. Or perhaps all three of you experience your own miracle and you will find the way how to go forward together.”

The priest smiled at her.

“I think you are too hasty with your thinking. Where did your father work just after he finished his school? And do you remember anything about the parents of your mother?”

“What? Oh, … I see. You think, that because he had been serving as a doctor on HMS Hermes, he would be willing to let me fight? I don’t know. And what about Faktors? What do they have to do with anything?”

“No, I cannot guarantee anything. But I think you can find a way more understanding for your mission from your parents than you expect now.

Also, I guess, you planned to leave right now to join your mission, right?”

“Actually, no. The oldest brother of one of my best friends will get married on August 1st, so I wanted to go to their family and be there until the wedding.”

“I think you should let them know you will come a bit later because I guess it will take a few days before you agree with your parents on anything. However, before that I think we should just visit your parents and talk with them, what do you think?”

It took some more talk with the girl, but in the end, they left the church office, and they were on their way towards the Grangers’ house.

[1] | New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. <http://nrsvbibles.org>  
---|---  
[2] | William Wilberforce was a truly remarkable person, but I don’t want to make this into a history lecture, and both our heroes here know him very well, so I have to refer you to [his page on Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Wilberforce) or to the film “[Amazing Grace](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amazing_Grace_\(2006_film\))” about him with Ioan Gruffudd, Benedict Cumberbatch, Romola Garai, and Albert Finney as the lead actors.  
---|---  
[3] | I have never been able to find who is the author of this very famous quotation. Two most likely candidates are the English writer Samuel Johnson and (future?) Wilberforce’s wife Barbara Spooner.  
---|---


	2. Your dwelling-place

“Father Williams,” the girl said, “I will need to make them unconscious, restoration of seventeen years of memory is not a pleasant experience, and they will do better if they don’t know about it. Making somebody unconscious is a simple spell we are trained in the self-defence classes, but it is not a nice thing to see, because it looks like an attack. Actually, it _is_ an attack.

And we need to get them inside.”

“Is that spell safe?”

“Yes, absolutely, and I have been well-trained to perform it. The only problem could be if they fell on something hard or something like that, but I can catch them and levitate them with another spell if it was to happen.”

They arrived at the Grangers’ house and the girl rang the bell. The girl’s mother opened the door, and she looked without any recognition of the girl, but she smiled at Father William.

“Father, it is so nice to see you! What brought you to us?”

The priest looked a bit bewildered. After preaching to the girl not to lie, he needed to do just that.

“This dear sister talked to me in the church, and there is something we need to discuss with you. And I am sorry, it is a bit private, may we come in, please?”

The woman opened the door, inviting them in, while she shouted to the stairs, “Wendell, come down, please!”

The girl’s father stepped down and when everybody was in the entry corridor, the girl suddenly pulled out her wand and Stunned her parents. She looked herself in shock from doing so, but she levitated them swiftly to the next sitting room and put both of them on a large sofa. Then she started to wave her wand over them. It took her a minute, but in the end, she looked satisfied with her work.

“So, now we need to revive them again. Father, please, stay with me for a minute more, this will probably be a rather unpleasant talk.”

The girl pointed her wand at both of her parents, and she shouted “ _Rennervate!_ ”.

For a moment, nothing happened. Then both of them absolutely simultaneously opened their eyes and looked at the girl and the pastor.

It was her mother who started shouting.

“Hermione, did you just curse us? And how come, … what in the world … Father, do you know about our daughters … special abilities?”

Then her face turned into pure anger and her eyes pointed at him directly.

“Father, did you know anything about what she did to us?”

“No, of course not. I have only learned about it half an hour ago, and I have immediately impressed upon her to make things right.

I think I have learned today more than I would like to know, so I will leave now. I just want to ask you to listen to your daughter. She may have done the wrong things, and her reasons may have been wrong, but her heart is in the right place. Please, listen to her before getting angry. You are apparently in the middle of horribly difficult decisions and you should really keep your family at least in your hearts together.

I will certainly pray for you all, and for you, Hermione, specifically, wherever you will be.”

He left and all three Grangers were looking at each other with an uncertainty of what to do. Finally, the silence was broken by Hermione.

“Mum, could I make us tea? I think we have a lot of talking ahead of us.”

In the end, they went to the kitchen together, prepared tea and collected all the biscuits and munchies they could find. Hermione with horror recognized that her mum already started packing the kitchen to boxes. Both women looked with concern to one another and both were afraid the other one would blow up soon. None of them said anything, and they returned to the sitting room with their tea.

When they sat down, they continued to stare at each other until, finally, Emma Granger’s curiosity got the better of her: “Hermione, are you pregnant?”

“WHAT? No, I am not.”

“Do you have a problem with alcohol or drugs?”

“No, of course not. How can you think that about me?”

“Well, wait until you have your own teenagers, and you will see what you will have on your mind. Anything else we can resolve somehow. So, is there something you need to tell us?”

Hermione smiled but her smile was rather crooked.

“You know, I would prefer my problems were so simple they could be resolved just by a wedding.”

That didn’t help to ease the feeling in the room. The girl knew that she just needed to continue.

“OK, the truth is that I have not been very truthful about what happened to me while studying at Hogwarts and there is a lot I have to tell you now. Could you, please, let me tell you everything before you chop my head off?”

She then started and spent the next two hours telling them true stories of her time in the magical world. She finally explained to them how her first year really finished, what was that sickness which held her in the infirmary for weeks at the end of her second year, what are Dementors, or how exactly she got hurt last year. She told them about the prejudice in the wizarding world against muggleborns, and that this world is now on the brink of a civil war, where the powers of law and order are not certain to keep on for much longer. She also told them, without going into any details, that they are planning to go with her friends for some clandestine and extremely dangerous action, and they have no clue how long it will take and that they, as her parents, will certainly be in danger. She also told them about her plan to send them to Australia for their protection.

When she finally finished (they had to make more pots of tea, and they ate more junk food before they were all done), both her parents were sitting there completely silent. For a long time.

It was Daniel Granger who broke the silence.

“I think the best option would be to say nothing now, I need to talk with Emma, and let’s continue in the morning. I am afraid, that whatever we say now, we would have to apologize in the morning, so let us skip that first part and sleep on it.

Just to make it clear, Hermione, you are not in much trouble from my side, although I can clearly see that you are in big trouble generally. I would like to tell you more, but I think I really need to talk with Emma first.

Let’s have a good night first, and we’ll meet in the morning.”

The girl thought for a moment, and she came to the conclusion that for the sake of peace among all three of them, it would be better just to follow her Dad’s advice.

“Dad, I agree, but there is one thing we need to do soon, it would be best to do it now. I am afraid Weasleys expect me to come today or tomorrow. Especially now, they will certainly worry if I don’t arrive on time. Yes, I want to stay here until we agree on what to do, and it will probably take some time, and I really don’t have to be at The Burrow before the end of July, so I can stay here and help, but we have to let them know nothing terrible happened to me.

The problem is that I don’t have an owl here and Weasleys don’t have a phone, so the only way I can think of transferring a message reasonably soon would be to call Harry now, who is still with his aunt and uncle, and he can send his owl Hedwig with a message. And another problem is that I am afraid a call from an unknown girl would not go well with Harry’s uncle. Could I ask you, Dad, to call him and get Harry for me to the phone, please?”

While talking about her adventures in the wizarding world she mentioned Harry’s horrible relatives so her Dad immediately recognized that she was probably right. Hermione found the phone number somewhere in her many notes, and Daniel Granger put on a stern look of the army officer combined with the poshest accent he learned while studying in the university. Fortunately for them, he learned to be intimidating well enough, and probably because the only true qualification Vernon Dursley had was to perfectly recognize the person he needed to suck up to, the whole handing over the phone went perfectly well, and the message was delivered. Harry originally wanted Hedwig to stay with him, but he decided this was more important and the owl would be safe at The Burrow.

With that out of the way, all three Grangers wished each other a good night and went to bed.

The next day was helpfully Saturday so nothing stopped them from talking even while they were eating their breakfast and continued without end. When they sat down with their tea and food, the girl’s Dad started.

“Hermione, I would like to make one thing very clear. We talked about it yesterday, so I can speak for both of us, that we are both very disappointed, that you did not trust us enough to share honestly what was going on with you.

We understand that now is probably not the time to deal with all this stuff, so we just put it on the side for now, because you probably need more help than just deep psychology, but this is not over. We still love you, you are our only daughter, but this eventually needs to be resolved.”

The girl blinked, she didn’t expect this level of acceptance, and promised herself, she would really deal with anything coming her way in their relationship, but her Dad was right, it was not the time. However, he hasn’t finished yet.

“Could you at least try to explain what led you to lie to us for so many years?”

“I know, it sounds silly, and it has sounded silly to me for many years, but I sincerely hoped those situations were just one-time flukes, which will never repeat, and I was afraid that you would panic and pull me out of Hogwarts.”

“Panic? Really? You really think that pulling you out of Hogwarts would be unreasonable?”

“I know. Looking at it now, it makes a lot of sense. But I really hoped the similar situation wouldn’t repeat again, and I really never wanted to lose my only friends I have ever found.”

“There are some other magical schools, aren’t there? Didn’t you mention one in France? You speak rather good French, you could make it perfect, and find new friends there.”

“Perhaps, but well … that’s the only part I am really glad, that I haven’t lost …” She got rather pink in her face, and she hadn’t finished the sentence.

Her mum got immediately curious.

“Is there a boy?”

The girl started to laugh.

“Yes, and that’s another mess I don’t know how to fix.”

Her Dad looked angry, and she felt the need to stop him immediately before coming to completely wrong conclusions.

“No, he didn’t do anything bad. Actually, that’s the problem. He didn’t do anything, I haven’t done anything, and we have been dancing around each other for at least the last three years. It is just completely ridiculous, and it is even worse, because when we will be living under the radar, just the three of us, it is probably not a good idea to start dating Ron, and leave Harry as the third wheel, so I am not sure what to do anyway.

Our relationship will have to probably wait even longer, and it really is not that important right now.”

Her parents looked at each other, but in the end, they shrugged and her Mum continued.

“However, that excuse about a false hope had to lose all sense in some moment, didn’t it?”

“It did, at least when Voldermort got back his body, but then I was so ashamed how much I didn’t tell you, that I have just kept going and getting more and more ridiculous. That charming of your memory has been just the last cherry on the top of many stupid decisions. I am really sorry.”

She started to cry. Perhaps still a little bit afraid, perhaps relieved that all those lies were revealed, perhaps because all her insecurity about the future finally hit her.

Her mum sat next to her, held her hand, and just let the tears flow. Her Dad decided to change the subject to more a practical talk.

“So, I don’t think we will resolve this now. Can we move on to more practical things? If I understand correctly, there is a war going on, so I guess we should focus on that, right?”

Both women looked at him with a bit of disdain, that he doesn’t care about their feelings, but in the end, both of them nodded at the same moment. Emma Granger then took the word.

“Hermione, you probably do not remember my parents, Faktors, do you?”

The girl nodded.

“Very dimly, there was some Christmas dinner with them, but it is really early not much.”

“Yes, they died when you were a little, and I haven’t talked about them enough. You probably remember I told you they were Germans originally from Reichenberg, that was a rich industrial city in Czechoslovakia. What I most likely haven’t told you, was that they were Jewish, and although completely secularized, and they always considered themselves Germans, they had enough sense when the threat of the German invasion of Czechoslovakia loomed over them, they sold their medical practice and moved to England and started again. Why I am telling you this is that whenever they were telling us how incredibly difficult it was to start their career again when they were in their forties, they always emphasized that they were glad they did it. They had many friends and relatives who stayed back in Czechoslovakia and hoped they would somehow muddle through the situation. All of them ended in concentration camps.”

The girl gasped.

“My mum always repeated that if you think that the ground is getting too hot to stay, then it is probably too late and you should have been gone already. She was also saying that it is always tremendously difficult to start your life somewhere else, but at least you have some life to start.

What I mean of course is that if you think it is dangerous for us to stay here, then I would really like you to consider leaving with us.”

Hermione nodded, but then she shook her head.

“I, … I would like to, actually. I think it would be for the best, and no it is not even about Ron, I think he would be glad I am not in danger that much, but I don’t think it is possible. Unless we really go to Australia, I am afraid the bad guys would still go after me, if not for any other reasons than to get to Harry. However, it is not the most important reason. I just cannot imagine that I could leave the boys here alone. You know me, so you know it is not boasting, when I say I hope to be really helpful to them as their brain and travelling library or to be Harry’s Q from the James Bond films. And Harry cannot go away, there are reasons why they would go after him even if he tried to hide in the middle of Antarctica. And if it ends badly for him, and I wouldn’t do everything I could to help him, I don’t how I would live with myself. I know, I am even in the wizarding world just barely of age, but there are reasons, mainly of secrecy, why this work cannot be done by anybody else then by Harry and the two of us.”

She looked with wide eyes to her parents. It just hit her again how much responsibility lies on the shoulders of the three of them. Her dad seemed to confirm how difficult her situation was.

“I am in a horrible situation. On one hand, I cannot even express how much I would like to keep you from all this danger and hide you as far as possible from all this.

On the other hand …”

There was a long moment of silence.

“… there is another story, this time from my family. Do you know that your Grandpa Granger had a cousin? He was eighteen, it was the beginning of the Second World War when he joined the Army, and he quickly moved to SOE, and he participated in the sabotage of the heavy water production facility at Rjukan in Norway. He was in the first wave of attack which failed, and he was killed by Gestapo. Only the second wave succeeded, and they hit the deathly blow to Hitler’s nuclear program.”

That made the girl’s head spin. Death of her relative by Gestapo didn’t sound like a hopeful role model to her, on the other hand, he was part of the operation which in the end, succeeded to eliminate the rather menacing threat of Nazis with The Bomb.

Her father continued.

“As I said, I would like to keep you out of this all, but if you think that what you would do is as important as that Second World War story of our great-uncle …”

She quietly said, “Perhaps even more important.”

“… and if I believed that this relative of ours was a hero doing God’s work, I would be a horrible hypocrite to stop you. And yet, I would be gladly a hypocrite, if it saved your life. It is horrible.”

“Dad, I cannot promise that I will do just research in the background and that I will never be in danger, but I am usually the one who tries to prevent the crazy actions of my reckless friends. And I know how much you will be worried and waiting for me to return. I hoped by erasing your memories, that if the worst happened you would at least never know you have lost your daughter. In this way, I will have to just be more careful.”

“Enough sentiment. Let us decide how we can help you. The first thing that comes to my mind is to acquire some weapons for you, but I don’t think any weapons would help you much, an untrained person with a gun is usually more dangerous to their own side, so your wands will have to be enough, but the second thing you will need for any underground operation is money and plenty of it. Where did you plan to get some?”

It took her some time before she managed to reply.

“Well, you know that savings account you made for me when I become an adult? I planned to wipe it up.”

Her father nodded.

“Yes, it doesn’t make me happy, but yes, I expected it. However, I don’t think it is enough. You mentioned once, that Harry is from a rich family in the wizarding world, is he not? Cannot he just pull some good chunk of money, and, I mean a sizeable chunk of money, like twice that account of yours, and convert it to pounds?”

“Well, he is with his uncle and aunt now, it is supposed to be safer for him there, and he shouldn’t leave for London.”

“Supposed to be safer?”

“Well, there is some incredibly powerful magic protecting him there, and only there, based on the sacrifice of his mother, so Professor Dumbledore said that basically nobody can attack him there now.”

“Oh, that sounds good. And why don’t all three of you move there?”

“Well, it is one place where probably everybody would try to find him, so we would have a hard time moving around, and yes, of course, it will stop working on his seventeenth birthday, when he will be of age in the magical world, which is in a month.”

“Oh, so it works just for a month? That doesn’t sound like a terrible advantage. And he is there alone?”

“Well, with his Muggle relatives.”

“Who cannot help him in case of magical attack much. That really sounds strange to keep him there.”

She was silent for a long time. She actually really couldn’t find a reason why Harry shouldn’t move to The Burrow as soon as possible.

“Hmm, but we are afraid that any magical means of transport are monitored by The Ministry, and he can be caught by people, who may eventually hurt him.”

“OK, that sounds actually really bad. So, he is effectively trapped alone in a place, where he cannot get out? You said, ‘magical transport’? You mentioned he has some kind of means of making himself invisible. Did I understand you correctly? Does something like that exist?”

“Yes, of course, he inherited a rather unique Cloak of Invisibility after his Dad. We used it a lot while going around Hogwarts.”

“So, couldn’t he just take this, and ride a bus somewhere to safety? And do you think that the telephone line to his house is bugged?”

“I am sure it isn’t. Magic really breaks electricity, so I don’t think anybody in The Ministry cares about telephones. And frankly, I don’t think most wizards even know what telephones are.”

“Hmm. And where exactly does he live?”

“Little Whinging in Surrey, it is near Sandhurst.”

“Well, I was a dentist in the Royal Navy, not in the Army, but I still have some friends in Sandhurst. Why don’t you just call him by phone, and let him know that he should walk, or drive a bus to the Academy and meet me there? Driving there from here would be like an hour or so, and I can just pick him up and drive him anywhere. Do you think there is a magical way to identify one car among many? Would they recognize my car?”

The girl looked at him with her eyes wide open.

“Why in the world that never came to my mind? How stupid I could be! No, of course not, a good pureblood wizard would have no clue around Sandhurst and I haven’t seen anybody around here yet, so I don’t think there is any way they could even know you have a car. But I don’t think he would be safe here. Unfortunately, the only thing The Ministry and wizards generally know about the Granger family is that we exist, our names, and this address. It must be somewhere on my records. I don’t think any wizard even made your photo. Yes, and if my classmates from less than nice families are not complete idiots, then they should understand that you are ‘tooth healers’, there are no dentists in the magical world.”

“Hmm, do you mean, if we took those names you wanted us to have, what was it, Wendell and Monica Wilkins?, we moved somewhere to the other side of Britain or Ireland, and started a new practice there, your wizards would have no way of finding us?”

“Perhaps, but I would go slightly further away. If it gets really nasty here, I would like you to have an open way how to get from the United Kingdom completely. Would your licences be valid in Gibraltar or on the Channel Islands?”

It was her mother who jumped into the conversation.

“Oh, Dan! There was a notice in the last British Dental Journal of somebody selling his late dad’s practice in Saint Helier in Jersey. I would love to be closer to the sea!”

Her husband smiled at her but shook his head.

“I was thinking about Gibraltar, Bermuda, or the Virgin Islands, actually. I spent a lot of time on that aircraft carrier in tropics, and I have rather pleasant memories of that. I could certainly use warmer weather than this horrible constant rain of our lovely homeland. But I think we need to decide about it somewhere in private, without Hermione listening to us.”

The girl smiled at the sudden outburst of her parents’ enthusiasm.

“Right, don’t tell me more, I certainly don’t want to have any contact information which would lead to you, if somebody searched me, but I hope if everything goes well, I will be able to find you through NHS as Wilkinses, won’t I?

Hmm, when I talk to my friends, I may actually stick with my original plan of moving you to Australia. The more everybody thinks you are on the other side of the world, the better.

And, Mum, you could also go around to some local shops and buy some winter boots mentioning that you need something warm for the winter in Australia. If anybody asks later, that would be nice if Australia was a firm part of the local grapevine.

However, Dad, I really have to stress, you should get out soon. The situation is deteriorating really fast, and I think the complete unravelling of the Ministry can come up in weeks, and not that many. I don’t think they will start going after Muggles that soon, but they will go after me really early, and if they don’t get me, they may seek retribution on you or try to get me out of hiding by attacking you. I really want to see you out of here in two three weeks maximum.”

The girl was thinking a bit more, and then she came with a new idea:

“Actually, Dad, I may help you even more. One of the good guys on our side has been working for some time in the office of the Prime Minister. Yeah, the real, I mean, the Muggle one. I think I will ask him when I get somewhere where I can get into contact with him, to get you into the Muggle Witness Protection Program. You would get help with clearing your trace behind you and with having your papers under the alias.”

Emma Granger had apparently enough talking about high and glorious plans, and she decided to bring everybody down to the ground.

“So, I guess, it is good, that I have started packing our whole household, right? We should continue on it, but let us go for lunch first. We were chatting, and I haven’t even started cooking yet, and I feel we need to have something nice.”

The idea of dining out was accepted by everybody wholeheartedly, and they moved to the cosy Italian restaurant in the neighbourhood and spent a lovely lunchtime with good food, good wine, and plenty of bad jokes.

When they returned home, the girl’s mother started to organize packing, but she was quickly overtaken by Hermione, who was finally happy to show that magic is actually good for something else than hurting their memory. A good application of the Pack Charm made the whole stashing of Grangers’ household into boxes a matter of two hours. They left unpacked just essentials required for the next few days and Hermione shrunk all the boxes to the size they fitted to the boot of the family car. They brought them to the local self-storage to be sent to their new home when they found one.


	3. I Will Deliver

It was sad when she was back in her childhood room, which was now completely empty. She considered that this time around she got at least her moment to say a proper farewell to this room, which was her home for her whole life. So, it was where her father found her sitting on the floor with her prayer book opened on her lap.

“What are you reading, Hermione?”

“Word, words, words … Sorry, it is that girly prayer book I got from Father Williams when I was leaving for Hogwarts for my first year. He found me in the church while I was breaking my brains over Psalm 91, and we actually haven’t finished it. And when these rooms are so empty, I am trying to figure out what I am thinking and how to approach this reality.”

She talked with him about what they have already gone over with Father Williams. She then turned to the remainder of the Psalm.

> Those who love me, I will deliver;
> 
> I will protect those who know my name.
> 
> When they call to me, I will answer them;
> 
> I will be with them in trouble,
> 
> I will rescue them and honour them.
> 
> With long life I will satisfy them,
> 
> and show them my salvation.

Her father was looking at this paragraph for a long moment, and he was thinking about how to find something more interesting and more useful for her at this moment.

“So, first the obvious one. There are a lot of promises. You called what you are planning to do ‘a suicide mission’, which doesn’t fill me with happiness, but we should both also consider what it is saying here, God promises to be present in your battles and you are promised a long life. There are two options in front of you, either you will ignore those promises, and you will be constantly worried and in your fear, you will decide wrong with bad consequences, or you will actually trust that the Lord knows what he is talking about, and you will rely on him even in situations which will be bad. There is always a choice.

And the second thing is just interesting. The beginning of this psalm is in the singular, what you, one individual should do, or what The Lord God promises to you, but this last paragraph is suddenly in the plural. It is all about ‘those’ and ‘they’.

When you mentioned yesterday first a secret mission, my first thoughts were not about some particular famous secret mission or even about Grandpa Granger’s cousin destroying the heavy water at Rjukan. I was thinking about Frodo and Sam walking through the plateau of Gorgoroth in The Lord of the Rings. Does it make any sense? I really don’t want to know any details, but just whether we are talking about something similar.”

The girl smiled. She hasn’t expected such an artistic association from her very practical father.

“Yes, smuggling the Ring into Mount Doom is a pretty appropriate image. How does it relate to this psalm?”

“I am still thinking about the plural at the end of the psalm. ‘I will satisfy _them_ , and show _them_ my salvation.’ Will it be exactly like in the Lord of the Rings? What I mean, when you complete whatever that secret mission is, will it be the end of your enemy? Will he just fall apart like the Dark Lord Sauron?”

The girl sadly shook her head.

“No, I am afraid not. It will just allow him to be defeated, without the completion of the task, his defeat would be mostly impossible. So, yes, even if we succeed, then there will still have to be some final confrontation.”

“Yeah, I have always thought those hobbits had it too easy. A ring was thrown to a volcano and suddenly all those uncountable armies, impenetrable tower of Barad-dûr, the Black Gate, and all that, made just one poof!, and they were conveniently gone.

I hope I am not diminishing your hope, but I think you need to think about two more things. First, what will you do if you succeed with this task, and second, what will you do if you fail.”

“If we fail?! How could you say something like this! If we fail, the world will end. We just cannot fail.”

“And that’s exactly that type of thinking I would like you to avoid. Remember, the whole cousin’s mission with the heavy water on Rjukan succeeded, even though his first wave didn’t. Have you noticed what was the biggest problem of the Dark Lord Sauron? In the trade literature, it is called the Single Point of Failure. There are people in the navy, who are going through every detail of every plan, of every tool used, and planning what to do if that detail of the plan or that tool fails. War just cannot be lost because one special irreplaceable screw in the aircraft-carrier gets broken, but the same applies to the large level. The Army has to be prepared for any unit failing. For every battle, you have to have prepared retreat paths, and for every unit, you have to be prepared if it is eliminated.

So, what should happen if your particular mission fails, and you are killed? Who will take over, who will have the information necessary to continue? You don’t have to answer me now, but you should have some answer prepared before you commit to the action.”

She looked at him with sudden fear in her eyes.

“I understand. However, that’s … the horrible way of thinking. I really don’t like the idea of preparing for our death.”

“Well, that’s how this Psalm starts, isn’t it? If you’ve made The Highest your refuge. If you don’t care for anything more than for the Lord, in the secular terms, if the success of your action is everything, then you shouldn’t be afraid of yourself. If your plan is prepared to work even without you, then you don’t have to worry about its success.

That was exactly the problem of Sauron, and I guess your dark wizard as well. They didn’t have another goal then their personal success, and when they are gone, nothing remains.”

The girl was sitting on the floor, chewing on her bottom lip, and thinking hard.

“I know, you are right, but it is a horrible way of thinking. My whole life, my future family, any future boyfriend or husband, could go away in flames?”

He sat down by her and put his hand around her arms, and she snuggled to him.

“Of course, I hope that you succeed, and I would really like to see my grandchildren. However, I don’t think it helps anybody to commit to a suicide mission, as you call it, and to freak out only in the middle because you find out that it, in fact, can lead to your demise. This is really a time to sort out your priorities.”

The girl was surprised by the exact phrasing of her father’s last sentence, thinking hard whether she mentioned Ron’s comment on their first-year adventure with the third-floor corridor, but then she was overtaken by the stress of the moment. Her father continued talking.

“I remember sitting in my surgery on HMS Hermes looking at the sunset over the Atlantic Ocean, it was a hot evening, we were passing the Canary Islands, and while it was just April, it was already pretty warm in that latitude. It finally hit me, even though I was just a dentist, not a front-line soldier, still, just one well-aimed missile or torpedo, and my awesome life could finish at the bottom of the freezing South Atlantic Ocean. Actually, I was not that wrong, twenty British sailors later died on HMS Sheffield and it could have as easily been me.

It took me a couple of days to get through those rather depressive thoughts. It was probably one of the worst days of my life, I think, I went through a small mid-life crisis in those days before I finally decided that being a soldier was helping to protect Emma and a future family I would have, and I decided that it was even more important for me than risking my life. And, to be a bit more cynical, I couldn’t have done anything else anyway, sitting on Her Majesty ship in the middle of the Atlantic.”

Although she was almost an adult even in the Muggle world, she turned to her father and cried for a long time to his shirt. When she finished, she still held her face on his shirt, and she was enjoying his presence. Her dad wondered whether she came to some conclusions down there.

“So, petal, what’s next? Are you still certain, you don’t want to run away with us?”

Still, with her head and endless bush of hair on his chest, she shook her head. It was hard to hear her, so he barely understood what she was saying.

“No, you are right, there are things worthy to die for. Besides, I was preparing for this in the last couple of years, I knew it, I was just not willing to admit it openly.”

She lifted her head and looked at his face.

“I swear, I will do everything to bring us back in one, err, three, pieces, but I will help to beat the bastard.”

Neither of them said anything more.


End file.
